On behalf of SERI, SATW has compiled a future analysis for Switzerland as a centre of research and industry. The study "Swiss Research Landscape - A Technological Panorama" focuses on 49 technological developments from nine research areas. The thematic spectrum of technologies covered is very broad, including microstructured windows, artificial intelligence and brain-machine interfaces.
The individual chapters describe the current state of development for each technology and the opportunities and risks associated with its development or non-development. The most important research hotspots in Switzerland and in an international context were also identified.
Technology fields summarise family-like individual technologies. Examples include autonomous systems, energy, bioinformatics and biotechnology, to name just three of the nine technology fields. These summaries allow more general statements to be made about the respective research fields.
The almost 60 oral and written interviews make it clear that many scientists and industry representatives consider research funding in the field of technical sciences in Switzerland to be sufficient, but complain about the difficult access to the Horizon Europe programme. The funding programmes here are often designed for basic research. For application-orientated or interdisciplinary research projects, on the other hand, it is more difficult to obtain the appropriate capital.
One idea that came up in various discussions is that funding could in future also include infrastructure that would be used by both companies and universities. One example of this would be clean rooms, such as those required for photonics. Cleanrooms are so cost-intensive to set up that they are beyond the budgets of small companies and start-ups.
This report identifies potentials and hurdles, and highlights opportunities and risks. Whether the priorities of education, research and innovation policy are set correctly is not a scientific question, but a political one that only the democratic negotiation process can answer. And so the study does not go into the subject. The publication draws a technological panorama and visualises how Switzerland stands with regard to the almost 50 developments examined.
Christian Holzner, Claudia Schärer, Stefan Scheidegger, Daniel Schmuki
Esther Lombardini
